Hope springs eternal

I recently heard the four most beautiful words: pitchers and catchers report. Living on the shores of Lake Erie, I’m used to tough winters. Ohioans trudge through January and February, just hoping for a glimpse of the sun. Perhaps that’s why we’re so eager to hear those four special words. The return of baseball is a harbinger of better times. Short sleeves and hot dogs. Freshly-cut grass and warm evenings. Even though it’s just spring training and the real games won’t start for months, we get excited. Every team still thinks they have a chance to go all the way, or at least fight for a playoff spot.

As a baseball fan starving for content, I’ve been listening to some team-by-team season preview podcasts. Every team is different, of course, but one constant keeps showing up. If a team is going to outperform its expectations, it will most likely be because its younger players made improvements. The wily veterans will mostly do what they typically do, until Father Time catches up with them. But the youngsters are the key. It got me thinking about the similarities between a baseball team and a nursery operation. What are you doing to coach your younger employees? Do some of them have star potential? If so, how can you unlock it?

This month’s cover story is about Knight Hollow Nursery. Liz (Dunham) Erickson is president of Knight Hollow, a Wisconsin tissue culture lab that is known for its propagation of woody ornamentals. I first met Liz on an IPPS tour years ago, before she took over the leadership of the company in a rare mother-to-daughter succession. She had excellent mentors and put in the work to become a better leader. Read her story starting on page 20.

Rogers Hornsby, a Hall of Fame second baseman and manager, has a famous line.

“People ask me what I do in winter when there's no baseball. I'll tell you what I do. I stare out the window and wait for spring.”

That’s a great quote. It really paints a picture with words. But it always struck me as facetious. Rogers Hornsby was a lifetime .353 hitter. He won the Triple Crown twice! I don’t care how naturally skilled you are, those are not the numbers of a player who sat around all winter. He played a century ago, so he may not have been training like today’s athletes do, but I’ll bet he was not staring out his window.

What do you do in the winter? Do you stare out the window at your nursery and wait for spring? Or do you use your time wisely?

You could use that time to experiment with new AI technologies, like the nursery robots in this month’s Marketing Confidential column. Check that out on page 8. Or run some tests to see if you can improve your substrate mixing to achieve the optimal pH. Find out how in this month’s Tinkering for Profit column, on page 16.

mmcclellan@gie.net